The only way is up
Oldham Athletic have long been forgotten about by the Premier League. It’s been a long, long time since they were relegated, the league had 24 teams back then.
- Oldham Athletic have not featured in the Premier League since 1993/94.
- They play their football in Vanarama Conference which is at least 4 promotions away.
Welcome to the start of the Fallen giants series, where we will play with each of the previously relegated Premier League teams. In this series we start with one of the oldest fallen giants – Oldham Athletic.
In this short series we look at how to set your team up on the first day of the first season. This is not a comprehensive guide, it’s going to be enough to start your journey. The problem for new managers here is that they get carried away, but do not know the details of the team they are playing with.
Managing Oldham Athletic from day one could potentially be the start of your fallen giants journey into FM24. Let’s find out who Oldham Athletic actually are. what can they achieve? Enter our guide.
In this guide, you’ll find everything you need to know to get started with Oldham Athletic, including:
- What objectives Oldham have and why they are important.
- The different types of players and how they work in the squad.
- Tips, tactics, and best practices to succeed with Oldham Athletic.
Continue reading on so we can take Oldham Athletic back to the EPL!
Oldham Athletic Objectives
Before we start this potentially epic journey back to the Premier League we need a plan for this Oldham Athletic team on FM24. So how do we build this strategy? We simply use the board and supporter objectives of Oldham Athletic. So as we can see the board are the most flexible board we have had in FM24 and have no objectives.
On the other hand we can see the supporters have more expectation in their objectives. They want attacking football so that gives us the choice between gegenpress and Tiki taka football. They also want us to develop players using our own youth development system, this is a little more in-depth, but creates a culture at the club.
With point one, I feel that the gegenpressing idea will work better. Gegenpress football needs players who are fit, meaning physical stats are paramount. The lower leagues are less about skill and more about physical attributes so there is a better synergy there. Younger players also have better physical stats and leads into our other objective.
Developing players using the youth system is great at this level as we can build a culture. Every coach coming into the club needs to be good with youngsters and every scout needs to be able to scout potential ability first. On the way up the leagues we need to develop our youth system to be the best it can be.
Oldham Athletic first 11
Our next task is to look at our team see where our strengths lie and how we form our tactics around them. On FM24 this is where Oldham Athletic will stride forward, through a strength based approach. We have been predicted to finish 2nd in the league, let’s make that happen.
The first group we look at are the players who are by far the best players. We can see that we have a really strong core at Oldham. Three very good strikers, one dominate centre midfielder and two class centre backs at this level. From this data alone it looks like a 442 maybe in order.
We then move onto the above average players who are three stars and above. We have a bunch of other positions covered here, namely the wide positions, and especially wingers. It would look as though we could play the balls down the wing and onto a target man to nod in the back of the net.
It also confirms what we thought of above with the 442. We have the tough tackling centre mid and water carrier, plus the fast wingers and full backs. It is also a simple formation that can work in the lower leagues.
Oldham Athletic Tactics
At this point we are just putting together all the decisions we have made above. We have explained the tactical style, I just don’t think that Oldham Athletic could play a technical game like Tiki Taka at this level. The only worry I have with this strategy is the defensive line, I will leave it there for now, but if we see a trend of through balls over the top it needs changing.
The 442 and the majority of positions were pretty straight forward. The problem we have with roles are the forwards, we either need a target man and poacher or advanced forward and deep lying forward combination. I’ve gone with the target man as I want to win the crosses and aerial duels.
Fullbacks will push up to cover wingers on counters and the strong core will defend the centre. The centre back partnership are solid, especially with the ball winners and water carrier midfield.
Get started with Oldham Athletic today
This is a challenge with Oldham Athletic on FM24 looks to be one I could sink my teeth into. It’s going to start out easy as you have one of two of the strongest teams in the league. As you go up the leagues you need to prepare the team for the numerous challenges ahead of you.
The main strength of this team is obviously the forwards, you have a choice of 3 great forwards at this level. With that sort of endorsement you want to play with at least two forwards to score more goals. The weakness of this team is the strength in depth in most other positions. This is a problem for most teams at this level because of budget and fitness. Find great utility players to cover positions.
The opportunity here is to roll with the objectives and push to get the youth development running. This will in time provide squad and first team players, as well as players you can sell to fund the team. The threat is that you do not prepare for the upcoming challenges in other leagues. Do not stretch the team too far or over invest in a certain part of the team.
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